23 Things @ CamMedLib + FollowThat....

Week 13: e-books a go-go

2010-08-16T11:45:00.000+01:00

E-books are here and they're getting bigger!

There have been e-books around for a few years now, and in Cambridge the e-books project began in 2005. Already in America, e-book sales from Amazon have overtaken paper sales (that acutally happened in December 2009), and so we can guess the direction this is going to continue on.

While you may not feel inclinded yet to read War & Peace on your PC screen, the rise in e-book readers makes recreational reading much more convenient - there are plenty to chose from each with their own strengths and weaknesses - the most popular include:

(sony e-book reader, kindle, increasingly the iPad)

You can even read e-books on mobile phones and iPods (and iPod Touch! let me know if you'd like to borrow the library iPod Touch to try it out!)

How might students find e-books useful? They can only borrow 5 books at any one time from the Medical Library, but there may be chapters they can dip into when they're on placement (or on elective abroad).

There are three sets of e-books that constitute the Things for this week.

Thing 18 - Universtiy e-books

TASK

find a couple of e-books using Newton - try searching for "abc and electronic and books" in the boolean search. click to view the book and try the search functionality
look at all the different providers of e-books that the University of Cambridge uses at the e-book page - instead of browsing each provider, try using the search box on this page to search for a health related topic.

Thing 19 - NHS e-books

The NHS provide e-books in the same way as they do e-journals - use you NHS ATHENS password to browse the content. How might an NHS professional working in the community find e-books useful?

TASK

login to the NHS collection of e-books
try searching for "oxford" in the title to see how many of the "Oxford Handbook.." series there are available

Thing 20 - Free e-books

While a lot of e-books are behind logins, or you have to buy them to download onto your e-book reader, there are plenty of e-books available for free.
There's a list of free e-book providers available on the ebook pages of the UL website.

TASK

Project Guttenberg is perhaps the best known - browser the bookshelf, and open a couple of books
how do they differ in presentation from the e-books availble via the University or the NHS?

Optional Extra

borrow the iPodTouch and try reading the e-books which are loaded on it already, and /or try going online to access the Oxford Textbook of Medicine (http://otm.oxfordmedicine.com/

BLOG

What do you like about e-books?
Can you ever imagine yourself reading an e-book? Why?
How might the users of the Medical Library make use of e-books?

follow that cake...

2010-08-10T18:45:00.000+01:00

Ewe 2 is very kindly contributing cake to this week's winner (as ever, the picture may actually bear no resemblance to delivered confectionary!)

The winner this week for their thoughts on the Follow that Journal of last week is.....

Well done!

Week 12: Follow that... Journal!

2010-08-03T18:04:00.002+01:00

We're following a journal this week - from selection, the Journal Co-ordination Scheme, ordering, distribution patterns and eventually getting them on the shelf - and everything in between.

You guessed it - your TASK for this week is to BLOG about the journey of a journal!

cake (but a healthy one...)

2010-08-03T17:58:00.000+01:00

Winner of the week 11 / thing 17 cake is ..... (drum roll....) ... this one!!

Well done! though on reading the post I rather think that I should perhaps make something more healthy than my previous offerings.... all this talk of sedentary lifestyles and cardiac health......

Week 11 - Podcasts

2010-07-26T16:13:00.000+01:00

Thing 17 – Podcasts

What is a podcast?
Podcast is a former word of the month in the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary.
"a recording of something like a radio programme that you can download from the Internet and play back on your computer or on an MP3 player "

Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minute commentaries to much longer in person interviews or panel group discussions. There’s a podcast out there for just about every interest area and since most podcasts have an RSS feed attached, you can subscribe to podcasts in the same way you subscribe to the RSS feeds way back in week 3.
The best part about this technology is that you don’t have to have an iPod (iPods are just one example of MP3 players) or a MP3 player to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a PC (or portal device) with headphones or a speaker, although if you want to listen to the podcast when you're away from your PC, then of course, you'll need headphones and an MP3 player.

To learn a bit more, try listening to the item below:

Increasingly university lectures are being recorded to be made available as podcasts (our own clinical students have loads of podcasts available to them on ERweb/MedPortal.

Cambridge University, just as it has a YouTube channel, makes podcasts available to the world at large and has its own channel of iTunesU.

This requires that you have iTunes downloaded on your computer in order to listen to the podcasts. If you' unfamiliar with iTunes please come and have a play on my computer (I'll cover your desk while you do so)

TASK:

go to BBC podcasts or BMJ podcasts and listen to a podcast you find interesting
set up an RSS feed from either the BBC series of BMJ podcast of your choice

BLOG

Add a link to a podcast you find interesting.

How might health professionals make use of this technology?

double cake awards

2010-07-26T10:33:00.000+01:00

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important cake... or 2 in fact.
The sharp-eyed and slightly peckish amongst you will have noticed that I missed the cake award last week - my apologies.

This means that there are two cake awards this week for my pick of the bloggers from week 9 and week 10.

So, I'm going to have a second attempt at a coffee cake (remember my first attempt? fear not, I'll be using a different recipe, I promise!) and a mystery cake (ie I've not decided yet!) tonight:

But who are the lucky winners? Well...... for Week 9 it's N Page

And for Week 10, it's Hoarder1.

well done both.

Week 10 – Maps

2010-07-20T15:43:00.001+01:00

Thing 16 - Online Maps

Maps are great - (as a geography graduate, perhaps I would say that, eh, ewe2?) Ordnance Survey have made all their maps available online - you can even order a map to be printed to your specifications!

And by putting maps online and making them interactive, they just got even better.

bing maps / google maps / StreetMap / MapQuest / Map24 /

and this is just a small selection of what's out there.

you can get satellite view, road maps, hybrid view and also street view (via Google Maps).

You can enter your starting position, and where you want to get to and the map will generate directions, even giving you distance and time.

TASK 1
- use any of the mapping tools and try getting directions from your house (perhaps using the postcode) to the Medical Library (CB2 0SP) - exactly how far is it? - post the distance (not your address!!!) on your BLOG.

StreetView is part of GoogleMaps, and it "provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world. It was launched on May 25, 2007, originally only in several cities in the United States, and has since gradually expanded to include more cities and rural areas worldwide"

It's not without it's critics - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7959362.stm

TASK 2

Go to using Google Maps, search for your house and play with Street View.

Why not go to Paris, or Berlin or New York, and enjoy the Street View.

BLOG about what you thought of it

TASK 3
Watch the video below - Tim Berners Lee is showing what can be done with maps when they are combined with other data. As more and more data is made available by government (both local and national) it's possible to present information in a variety of more meaningful ways.
OpenStreetMap is also presented - a wiki-map (remembering that a wiki is an opportunity for lots of people contribute to the same document).
Then compare the quality of OpenStreetMap (you can read about OpenStreetMap),with Google Maps - look at an area of Cambridge (or anywhere!) that you're familiar with, and see which is the most up to date. If you cycle a lot does OpenCycleMap give you routes you didn't know about?
Write a BLOG post about the difference.

EXTRA TASK (OPTIONAL)
Create your own google map (such as this one - click on the blue pins to read the comments about each library):

View 5 libraries in cambridge in a larger map)

- go to google maps, and login with your google/blogger login

- click on "my maps" and "create a map"

- give your map a title, and a description if you like

- look for the blue pin, click it and drop it wherever you want on your map
- give your pin a title (and description if you like), and click OK

- and then keep on adding more pins, or drawing lines, with more details, according to what you want to identify.

- Once you're done, get the code for your map and embed it in your blog (click on the link option in the top right-hand corner of the map, copy the text in the box headed "paste HTML to embed in webpage" - and do as you did to embed the YouTube video!)

Follow that.... READER! (optional extra answers)

2010-07-20T13:37:00.000+01:00

So, how did you get on with the optional extra Follow That... READER! task?

The answers are below, and a bonus prize "goody" bag will be given to all those who took part.

(in no particular order) Well done to.....NPage; Hoarder1; Tiger007; Here We Go!; Top Blog; Ewe 2; 23 (46) Things;

1-IMAGING PICTURE TEST FOR MRCPCH(STUDY GUID) BY ANDREW P WINROW
Imaging picture tests for the MRCPCH / A.P. Winrow
WN 18.51.1 etc

2-TOWARDS MRCPCH (THEORY) EXAMINATION PART2 ,HOLDER ARNOLD PUBLICATION BY SURAJ GUPTE,TAPABRATA CHALLERJEE,DR JO KOSTER
not held in the medical library

3-questions for MRCPCH part 2 written examination by dr nick barnes and dr julian forton isbn no 9781904627166
not held in the medical library

4-250 questions for mrcpch part 2 (MRCPCH STUDY GUIDE ) by james L R obertson,adrian P Hughes
250 questions for the MRCPCH part 2 / J.L. Robertson, A.P. Hughes.
WS 18.115.1 etc

5-MRCPCH DATA INTERPRETATION QUESTIONS (GET THROUGH) BY NAGI GIUMMA BARAKAT
100 data interpretation questions in paediatrics : for MRCPCH/MRCP Part 2 / editor Nagi Giumma Barakat.
WS 18.65.1 etc

6- DATA QUESTIONS FOR MRCPCH PART 2 (CHURCHILL'S PASS PAEDIATRICS) BY JAMES ROBERTSON AND AP HUGHES
Data questions for the MRCPCH Part 2 / J.L. Robertson, A.P. Hughes.
WS 18.76

7- MRCPCH PART 2 PAEDIATRICS PRACTICE EXAM BY D. PAL ,P GRINGRAS, M GREENBUR
MRCPCH part 2 paediatric : practice exams / P. Gringras, D.K. Pal, M. Greenberg.
WS 18.92

8- PAEDIATRICS GREY CASES FOR MRCPCH (STUDY GUID) BY ALAN FENTON
Paediatric grey cases for the MRCPCH / Alan C. Fenton ... [et al.].
WS 18.86

9-MRCPCH PART 2 PRACTICE EXAM BY GILES KENDALL ABD IAN POLLOCK
not held in the medical library

10 MRCPCH PART 2 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FOR THE NEW FORMAT EXAM ;THE COMPLETE REVISION GUIDE BY KATE H GREES, COLIN VE POWELL,PATRICK H. T CARTILAGE
MRCPCH part 2 : questions and answers for the new format exam / Kate H. Creese, Colin V.E. Powell and Patrick H.T. Cartlidge.
WS 18.125.1 etc

another week another cake winning blog

2010-07-09T16:56:00.000+01:00

This week's prize is a mixture of Blondies and Brownies (nut and chocolate sensations respectively). Just sorry I couldn't work out how to do Reddies, Gray-ies, Mousies etc to cover all hair colours, but such is life....

The winner will find their prize in the fridge, marked appropriately.

(There's also a spare box in the fridge too for the rest of us.)

But who's the winner???

Congratulations!

Week 9 - Video

2010-07-09T16:02:00.000+01:00

Thing 15 - Video
except video is the old way - a chunky VHS tape you put into a machine that's connected to your television. With the birth of YouTube in 2005 (it's that young!) it became incredibly easy to create a film, upload it and share it with the world.

It doesn't necessarily have to be any good, admitedly - there's no quality control - and the content can range from movie clips, TV clips, music videos, promotional films and educational material as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos.

What is your general opinion of the quality of material on YouTube?

TASK

If you've not tried before, go to www.youtube.com and browse - YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine after Google (indeed it's owned by Google), so it's worth having a look.

TASK (optional extra)

Try embedding a video in your blog.
Look for the "embed" option at the bottom of the video you like, copy the code.
open your blog, and start a new post.
Switch from "compose" view to "edit HTML" view
Paste the code wherever you want it in your blog.
Save and preview, and if you're happy, publish.
(see for more details of where to look for the embedding code, and to embed it in your blogger blog)

To make it easier for you to find useful content on YouTube, the films are divided into sections - channels. One of those channels is YouTube Edu - you can find other channels from the YouTube homepage by clicking on the "browse" option, and looking through the categories.

Can you find the Cambridge University YouTube channel?

TASK

Find the Cambridge Unviersity YouTube Channel and watch a video (remember you might need headphones to get the full effect)
Find the Health & Medicine section of YouTube education section and browse the content.
YouTube isn't the only site which hosts video - go to google and search for a topic, but pick "video" from the options at the top of the page. Browse the content.

BLOG

Write a blog post about your opinion of YouTube content - and perhaps about how/if it has changed.
Include a link to (or embed!) a video you've found interesting.
Include a link to (or embed!) a video from a site other than YouTube

Follow that.... READER! (optional extra)

2010-07-09T14:40:00.004+01:00

The list of books below was email to me to check to see if we had them.
(I’ve not changed/tampered/improved/worsened the list – I quote verbatim)

Test your Newton searching skills to see which books we have.

Answers will be posted on Monday 19th July, but BLOG your answers before then, and you may be in with a chance of a bonus prize!
(assuming you've got all the answers right!)

(ps – clue: you may find that some of the titles and authors are not entirely accurate…..)

(thanks to Dawn Endico)

1-IMAGING PICTURE TEST FOR MRCPCH(STUDY GUID) BY ANDREW P WINROW

2-TOWARDS MRCPCH (THEORY) EXAMINATION PART2 ,HOLDER ARNOLD PUBLICATION BY SURAJ GUPTE,TAPABRATA CHALLERJEE,DR JO KOSTER

3-questions for MRCPCH part 2 written examination by dr nick barnes and dr julian forton isbn no 9781904627166

4-250 questions for mrcpch part 2 (MRCPCH STUDY GUIDE ) by james L R obertson,adrian P Hughes

5-MRCPCH DATA INTERPRETATION QUESTIONS (GET THROUGH) BY NAGI GIUMMA BARAKAT

6- DATA QUESTIONS FOR MRCPCH PART 2 (CHURCHILL'S PASS PAEDIATRICS) BY JAMES ROBERTSON AND AP HUGHES

7- MRCPCH PART 2 PAEDIATRICS PRACTICE EXAM BY D. PAL ,P GRINGRAS, M GREENBUR

8- PAEDIATRICS GREY CASES FOR MRCPCH (STUDY GUID) BY ALAN FENTON

9-MRCPCH PART 2 PRACTICE EXAM BY GILES KENDALL ABD IAN POLLOCK

10 MRCPCH PART 2 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FOR THE NEW FORMAT EXAM ;THE COMPLETE REVISION GUIDE BY KATE H GREES, COLIN VE POWELL,PATRICK H. T CARTILAGE

mmm, caaake....!

2010-07-05T12:18:00.000+01:00

Great to see all your contributions to the wiki - there's still time to make your contributions.

Last week was all about mobile technologies, and this week's prize is a Hummingbird Cake - a pineapple/banana/walnut delight that looks vaugely like the picture...

(with thanks to ulterior epicure for the picture)

and the winner is......

congratulations!

Week 8: Follow that.... READER!

2010-07-05T10:36:00.000+01:00

We tell readers all the time that we offer this, that and the other facility or service, but when was the last time we actually performed any of the tasks ourselves, or used any of the tools we make available? If we don't know how our own equipment works, we can't possibly hope to help readers when they come unstuck. Are the instructions we provide adequate?

This week we're following a reader, from registration, through a library introduction, and then through some of the things they do in the library on a regular basis: photocopying, printing, scanning, using the wireless network.

Task

Photocopying

- take staff photocopy card, and made a double sided photocopy (perhaps of this sheet??)
- (optional) enlarge or shrink a document (eg reduce to 50% of the original size)

Computers
- login (after re-setting your library card if necessary) and add £1 of printing credit

Scanning
- login to computers with scanners attached, and scan this page
- save the image to a memory stick
- add this image to an entry on your blog with a short commentary on how easy/difficult you found it to use the scanner

Access the wireless network using the library laptop
(overlap with Thing 13 - don't say I'm not good to you!!)

Binding (optional)
- get a few pages of scrap and bind them

BLOG

write a blog post (containing the image you scanned in the task) about how easy it is to perform all these tasks. What additional information could we provide to make life easier for our readers?

blog for a cake

2010-06-28T09:46:00.000+01:00

For once this is a reasonable representation of the winners cake this week!

(I know, astonishing, isn't it?)

Anyway the lucky winner will get a midsummer with peaches and blueberries, and that lucky winner is.......

Prize is in the blue tin in the staff room.

Week 7 – Mobile technologies

2010-06-25T18:28:00.008+01:00

This week isn't very desk based (hurrah!) - because it's all about being mobile!

image from flickrCC

Most (if not all) of the clinical students will have laptops, even if they don't bring them into the library, and they'll make use of the increasing number of free wifi/wireless networks that are available (eg in Starbucks, or McDonalds, or the Library).

Most (if not all) of our library users have mobiles, and a fair proportion will be able to access the internet from their phone.

What does this mean for how we can deliver library services?

Optional reading:

M-Libraries - information use on the move - the report of an Arcadia project on the current and potential use of mobile technoloiges

Thing 13 – Wireless access to the internet

borrow laptop and login to LIBAIR - write a blog entry from somewhere in the library other than your desk.

(remember, you may need to reset your Wolfson room login)

Extra task: optional

Borrow the laptop and go across to the hospital concourse, login to the wireless network there and write a blog entry from there - how easy was it?

Thing 14 – Mobile access to the interent

borrow the ipodTouch (or get an introduction to using it, with Isla's help), and access the internet in the library, perhaps search for your blog and see what it looks like, or other websites you use on a reugualr basis. It may take a bit of getting used to using the touch screen, but give it a go.

BLOG:
Blog on the experience, whether you liked using the Touch (or not) and how you think students and health professionals might use this technology.

image from flickrCC

Alternative to Thing 13 & Thing 14

For those of you who already use mobile technologies on a regular basis, your task is to talk about how you use them, and consider how they might be used in libraries and by libraries in the future. (Just a small thing I'm asking for then, eh?)

update - well done to the eagle-eyed amongst you who spotted my (ahem) deliberate mistake in the numbering of these things....

when is a cake not a cake....?

2010-06-21T09:55:00.000+01:00

When it's a savoury ham and mushroom muffin!!

which is what this weeks winner will getting.

(well, sometimes cake on a Monday morning is just too much!)

but who's the lucky winner this week?

Well done Tiger007

Week 6: Office 2.0 (part 2)

2010-06-18T18:15:00.001+01:00

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools, but with benefits that wikis provide the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.

You've probably used a wiki in the past - the best known is Wikipedia - ( how does wikipedia work?)

Some of the benefits that make the use of wikis so attractive are:

Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
Earlier versions of a page can be rolled back and viewed when needed.
Users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALA conference wikis and library staff manual wikis.

If you're still not sure what wikis can do, have a look at this:

Thing 12 - wikis

For this thing you're going to receive an email invitation to register with PBWorks.

Please check your email, (look out for an email that looks like this:

and let me know if you don't get one)
Once you're registered, you'll see a page which displays the wiki you're invited to contribute to:

Open the "workspace" and you'll see this wiki - now you need to contribute your "edits" so don't just view the page, EDIT it by clicking that tab.

Make your changes as per the instructions in the wiki and remember to SAVE when you're finished (button at the bottom of the screen).

BLOG

Please add a screenshot of your contribution to the wiki.

How did you like to use it?

Do you think it could be useful in the Medical Library?

How might researchers collaborating make use of wikis?

Week 6 – Office 2.0 (part 1)

2010-06-18T17:39:00.000+01:00

This week we'll be looking at the new ways you can create and share documents - to get an overview, get your headphones on, and watch this video:

(created by JISC)

Thing 11

In this Thing, you'll create and share a text document using Google Docs.

First, log in to Google Docs at http://docs.google.com/ using your Google Account.

On the page that appears, click on the "Create new" button below the Google logo, and choose Document from the drop-down menu to create a new text document.
Now you will be in a word-processing environment, with some tools that should look familiar across the top. You don't even need to click in the white space to get started, just begin typing.
Write a few lines of text, then make some formatting changes to it. For instance, select your text and change the font to one of the other 10 options. Or make some of the text bold, or italic or red. Click on the spellcheck button to check for spelling mistakes.
Google Docs will save your document regularly as you work on it, so if you see "saved seconds ago" in the top-right corner, you know the most recent version is saved.

If you don't see that message, remember to go to file and "save as" to ensure your work is safe.
When you're finished, click on the floppy disk icon at the left of the toolbar to save your document, or choose Save from the File menu.
By default, Google Docs will use the first bit of text in your document as the document title. You will see it next to "Google docs: at the top of the window. If you'd like to change the title, just click on the title and enter a new one in the pop-up that appears.

Now, invite another 23Things participant to share your document, so that they can view but not edit it. To do this, click on the Share button at the upper right of the screen, then choose Invite people... from the dropdown menu.
In the pop-up that appears, enter the email address of the person you wish to invite (enter their @medschl.cam.ac.uk or @cam.ac.uk email address), click the radio button that says "To view", change the subject line of the message and add your own message if you wish, then click Send.

If you don't have an email address to use, feel free to send Isla an invite at ilk21@cam.ac.uk

Comment or make changes to any document that is shared with you.
After a couple of days go back and check what changes have been make to the document you share

Extra Task: optional

Create a Form with one question in Google Docs (using the "Create new" button as above but choose Form from the menu). Email it to several other 23 Things participants and ask them to complete it.
Try creating a short slide presentation using Google Docs. Save it it to your computer in PowerPoint format.

BLOG

post a screen shot of the document you created in google docs.

How easy was it to create the document and share it? Tell me what you think of GoogleDocs.

Cake-Wining Blog #4

2010-06-14T12:56:00.000+01:00

So, remembering that this is a bonus week to allow a bit of time and space for those that need it to catch up with their "Things", there's still a winning blogger!

And here it is!

A little bit of flattery for NHS ATHENs resources goes a long way!

Fear not, Lucky Winner, you're not just getting ordinary peaches - you're getting Peaches and Cream Cupcakes as your prize....

Cake that! -update

2010-06-10T14:46:00.000+01:00

It is with great chagrin that I have to announce a change in cake for this weeks winner, owing to the fact that while cooking the coffee cake turned into an extra from The Blob (as opposed to The Blog!...)

As a result this week's lucky winner is having to wait a day longer to get the prize, but they do have the compensation of being able to chose a flavour of alternative cake...

They've chose Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes instead.... wise choice, madam!

Cake that! (and bonus)

2010-06-07T10:15:00.000+01:00

This week it's going to be a coffee cake extravaganza (although it wont look exactly like the picture....)

Who's the winner this week?

Feel I should probably attempted some exotic pink frosted number given the blog's colour scheme.

Sorry, you're getting a brown cake.... Lucky winner your cake will be in the fridge.

Bonus!

Since this week will be a little bit of a struggle owing to planned and unexpected staff absence, you're going to get 2 weeks to complete Things 8, 9 and 10.

Week 5 - Bookmarking (part 3)

2010-06-04T16:53:00.004+01:00

Social Bookmarking

So far, the methods of bookmarking (or creating favourites) is a personal thing – only on the computer you are logged into, or under your NHS ATHENS login. No one else can see them.

Social bookmarking services allow you to save or bookmark your favourite web sites online and to share them with others. Using a Social bookmarking service is like saving favourites to Internet Explorer or any other web browser but with added benefits:

Watch this video to see what is meant by social bookmarking (you'll need your headphones):

Some advantages of social bookmarking

You can access your bookmarks from any computer or device with an internet connection
You can share your bookmarks with others (although you can also keep any that you don’t want to share private!)
You can “tag” bookmarks with relevant keywords to help you (and others) to retrieve them easily.

More about Tagging

Tagging is a facility used by many Web 2.0 services – not just bookmarks. It allows you to associate keywords or phrases with particular items (for example pictures, videos, bookmarks, catalogue records etc) in order to make them easier for you and others to retrieve. You can add as many tags as you like which makes it easy to describe items that cover many different concepts.

It is also possible to use “shared tags”. These are tags used by people who want to share items on a particular topic. To facilitate this, users tag relevant items with an agreed shared tag. For example, to share items with other people participating in the Oxford 23 Things programme, add the tag “ox23”. A search on ox23 will then reveal all the items shared by programme members.

Services

The following services offer Social Bookmarking: Delicious, Diigo, Digg, Connotea(which also works for journal articles) and Stumbleupon. A longer list is available.

Thing 10 - Delicious

Sign up for a Delicious account at http://delicious.com/ This will require you to set up a Yahoo account.
During the sign up process you will be given the option of downloading the Delicious “bookmarklet”. This is a useful button which sits in the “links” toolbar in Internet Explorer and other internet browsers and allows you to bookmark web sites to Delicious as you browse. Install it if you wish. If you're not sure you can always install it later.
If you haven't used Delicious before, take a look through the information in “How do I get started?”
Save at least five of your favourite web sites as bookmarks and give each tags.

If you have installed the Delicious "bookmarklet" you can save web sites to Delicious simply by visiting the web site you want to save and clicking in your links toolbar.

If you haven't installed the "bookmarklet", log on to your Delicious account and click "Save New Bookmark" (top right) you will then have to enter the URL of the page you want to save followed by its title and tags.
Save your blog and/or another web site on the theme of web 2.0 as a bookmark. Add tags and this time also include the “23cammedlib” tag so that other members of the programme can find the bookmark.
Choose “Tags” / “Explore” and search for the tag “23cammedlib” to view bookmarks shared by other member of the programme. Save any pages that look interesting to your own Delicious account.

Extra Task: optional

a. Read about tagging and folksonomies by searching using the Delicious search. This searches all the public bookmarks saved on Delicious. Save any pages that look interesting to your own Delicious account (don’t forget to share them using the 23cammedlib tag as well as some of your own tags).

b. Send a bookmark to another user by adding their delicious username to the “send” field. (If you don’t know anyone using Delicious you can send a bookmark to me: ilk21).

BLOG:

Take a screenshot of your list of favourites/bookmarks, and load it into your blog. Label it “Thing 10”.

BLOG:

blog about the difference between the 3 ways of creating book marks and what the advantages/disadvantages would be.

Which is your favourite? And why?

Which do you think would be a students favourite? And why?

Week 5 - Bookmarking (part 2)

2010-06-04T16:53:00.003+01:00

Thing 9 – NHS MyLibrary bookmarking

Your NHS ATHENS password will also let you personalise the section MyLibrary. This works as an RSS reader as you saw in Thing 7. It also has a bookmarking section, so that wherever you are, you can login to find the links to your favourite/most useful websites.

TASK:

Go to http://www.library.nhs.uk/mylibrary/ and login with your ATHENS password (login button is on the top right-hand corner)
Look at the section marked My Links.
it’s already got some links which NHS Evidence thinks you might find useful, but if you don’t like these links, just tick the box and click “remove selected links”
Now it’s time for you to add some links which you do find useful.
Open a new web browser or tab, and find a website you find useful. Copy the address/URL.
Back in MyLibrary, click “Add Link”, and copy the URL in the appropriate box. (be careful to delete the existing http://)
Fill in the box marked “Link Title”, and click “add link”
Add a couple more links to other websites.

Extra Task: optional

Try adding categories to your links.
When you add a new link, complete the “category” box. When you add another new link, perhaps you will want to add the same category tag, or create a new category. It works like a system of folders.

BLOG:

Take a screenshot of your list of favourites/bookmarks, and load it into your blog. Label it “Thing 9”.

If you’ve completed the optional extra task, perhaps add a comment on what you think of this functionality.

Week 5 – Bookmarking (part 1)

2010-06-04T16:52:00.000+01:00

Bookmarking your favourite websites is probably familiar to you.

Just to refresh you memory…

Thing 8 - Browser based bookmarks

TASK:

Find a website you like or find useful, and then…..

Using Internet Explorer

click the green plus/gold star button to “add to favourites”
Name the favourite in a way that makes sense to you.
Click add.
To view the feed to check if there are any new items for you to read, click the gold star button, and pick the “favourites” column; alternatively, click “favourites” in the top menu bar.
You have the chance to organise your favourites into folders if you want to. Click “favourites” in the top menu bar, and click “organise your favourites”

OR
Using Firefox,

Click the star in the address bar, this automatically adds it to your list of Bookmarks (notice it changes from clear to gold)
Click the star again, and you’re given the chance to name the bookmark in a way that makes sense to you, and to put it in a particular folder (depending on the way you’ve organised your bookmarks)
You also get the chance to tag the bookmark.
Click done or “remove this bookmark” as appropriate.
To view your bookmarks, click “bookmarks” and chose “recently bookmarked”

BLOG:
Take a screenshot of your list of favourites/bookmarks, and load it into your blog. Label it “Thing 8”

Who gets the cake?

2010-06-01T09:37:00.000+01:00

Because of the Bank Holiday Monday, I've waited till today to award a blog with cake.

However, because my brain is slow to get in gear this morning owing to the day off yesterday, I've managed to leave the cake at home.....

So the prize winning blog this week is this one:

But the cake (this week it's lemon cupcakes - I promise the lemon theme will chnage next week!) will be presented tomorrow.

Remember to take advantage of this week "off" to catch up with

any Things that you've not managed to finish.

Week 4: Take a week off, and FollowThat...

2010-05-28T17:04:00.004+01:00

This is a "rest week" where there are no new Things. You can use this week to catch up with any of the first 7 things, or enjoy the break!

Just think: 7 down only 16 to go or alternatively, 1 cake down, only 9 chances left to win! (I wonder which viewpoint makes you a pessimist and which an optimist...?)

AC will be gathering you up into groups on Tuesday and Thursday to Follow That... Book!

BLOG

Please write a short blog post about an aspect of the journey of a book, from publisher to shelf, that you weren't aware of before.

ps - cake winner will be announced on Tuesday (I'm taking Monday off to bake the cake!)

Week 3: RSS

2010-05-24T11:55:00.003+01:00

First thing is to establish what RSS is.

You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny orange icons on websites? You’ve heard friends and colleagues swear by it, but still have no idea what RSS is? Well don’t worry! RSS is not only revolutionalising the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web. Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit everyday. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it?

Watch a short video:

Optional: watch http://library.medschl.cam.ac.uk/news-rss.php as well, or for a slightly longer video try this one: http://web2practice.jiscinvolve.org/rss-2/

(remember and plug in some headphones if you’re watching either of the videos!)

Search Wikipedia for an explanation of RSS.

Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS!

Now it’s time to try 3 different ways to organise the RSS feeds you find useful.

Thing 5 – Browser based RSS Reader

You can use the Internet browser to manage your RSS feeds, in the same way as you use it to organise you favourite (or bookmarked) websites.

Task

Step by Step:

First find an RSS feed you like – look for the RSS button on your favourite websites (or perhaps try the Medical Library RSS feed for starters, or try the BBC News website, or your favourite newspaper website)
Click the RSS button to view the feed.

Folllow the instructions for the web browser you use most often:

Using Internet Explorer,

click the green plus/gold star button to “subscribe to this feed”
Name the feed in a way that makes sense to you.
Click subscribe.
To view the feed to check if there are any new items for you to read, click the gold star button, and pick the “feeds” column – if the name of the feed is bold there is new material for you to read; if the name of the feed is in normal type, there is no new material for you to read

Using Firefox,

Click “subscribe now”
Name the feed in a way that makes sense to you.
Click subscribe.
To view the feed to check if there are any new items for you to read, click “bookmarks” chose “bookmarks toolbar” and then pick the feed you want. Click on the entry that is interesting to you.

Perhaps you could try adding a few more RSS feeds. You could try using the 23 Things blog feed (look for the orange button in the browser menu to view the RSS feed).

BLOG:

Take a screenshot of your browser based RSS feeds, and load it into your blog. Label it “Thing 5”

Don’t remember how? [There's some instructions in the Hints & Tips]

Thing 6 – Web based RSS reader

There are many available but for the purposes of this programme we will use Google Reader as you have already created an account with Google.

• Go to Google Reader at www.google.com/reader

• Sign in with your Google account username and password

• watch this video

Once logged in you will see the homepage of your account. Down the left-hand side is a navigation panel and on the right is the main section of the page where you will see the content of your feeds. Automatically displayed are some posts from Google to help you get started. You can read through these now or come back to them later.

To show you how to receive updates from a site we will start by subscribing to the feed for the 23 Things blog.

• In the blog's sidebar you will see the heading 'Subscribe to this blog'. Underneath it are options to subscribe to the posts and the comments. For now we will just subscribe to the posts.

• Click the link to the posts RSS feed and a drop down menu will appear listing a number of feed readers. From the list choose 'Add to Google'.

• A new window will open giving you the option to either add the feed to your Google homepage or Google Reader. Add this feed to your Google Reader by clicking the blue 'Add to Google Reader' button.

• You will be taken into your Google Reader account. In the navigation panel on the left you will now see 23 Things Oxford under the Subscriptions heading. In the main section of the page you will see the latest update from the blog. To view previous updates scroll down the main section or you can use the 'N' and 'P' keys to move through the udpates.

Your next step is to locate some more blogs and websites to subscribe to.

Be aware that not all website/blogs have buttons like the one on this blog which allow you to easily subscribe to feeds using Google Reader. In some cases you will have to copy and paste the feed's URL into your reader following the steps below:

• Once you have located the site's RSS feed right click on the link and choose 'Copy Shortcut'

• Open another tab or window and sign in to your Google Reader account

• Click the 'Add Subscription' button at the top of the left-hand navigation panel. Right click in the text box that appears and choose 'Paste'.

Finally click 'Add' and you will see the site's feed added to your subscriptions. Try adding 3 or 4 different feeds.

Extra Task (optional)

share your feeds

when you have set up some RSS feeds in your reader, click on the “share” button. You can add a comment on the item you have chosen to share if you like.
Click the “setting” button, and chose “reader settings”
Click “folders and tags”
View the “public page” of your shared items.
Add this link into your blog, and write a short comment about how this functionality might be useful.

BLOG:

Take a screenshot of your Google Reader page, and load it into your blog. Label it “Thing 6”

Thing 7 - MyLibrary RSS reader

Your NHS ATHENS password will also let you set up an RSS reader.
(if you need a reminder of your NHS ATHENS password, please ask Isla, Alison or Anna).

Task:

Go to http://www.library.nhs.uk/mylibrary/ and login with your ATHENS password (login button is on the top right-hand corner)
The section called “My Update” is the RSS reader.
Open another web page, and find an RSS feed that you find interesting.
Highlight and copy the address (URL) of this feed
Return to the MyLibrary page, and click “add feed” button
Paste the address/URL into the URL box, and give the feed a name that makes sense to you.
See the message that states “The feed has been added successfully” and click “continue to MyLibrary”
Add more RSS feeds as you wish.
Scroll to the bottom of the page – and register for email alerts of the RSS feeds if you wish.

BLOG:

Take a screenshot of your Google Reader page, and load it into your blog. Label it “Thing 7”

BLOG:

Write a blog entry about your impressions of RSS in general. Do you think it could be useful? Which of the 3 ways of gathering RSS feeds did you like most, and why?

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?
What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels?

Cake-Winning Blog Entry!

2010-05-24T11:30:00.001+01:00

Every Monday I'm going to chose a blog-entry that catches my eye as "the one that takes the cake".

A completely arbitrary choice, I admit!

This week I chose this one.

(ps - the cake in the picture is not an accurate representation of the prize. This week the lucky winner will get the lemon drizzle cake that is sitting in the fridge!)

Week 2: Blogging

2010-05-17T09:46:00.001+01:00

Why blog?

People blog because they want to share with others. They may share their opinions, rants on particular topics, or news from a holiday. They may even have a professional blog where they share views on their work, or they may have a blog all about their pet. When you’re blogging, you can adopt any persona you like.

This programme is based upon blog entries and during its course you’ll need to write on your own blog about each Thing you complete. Will you want to continue blogging after you’ve finished? You may change your ideas on this throughout the course – let us know what you think.

Watch this short video about what blogs are. (You'll need sound or a set of headphones for this one.)

We will be using blogs to track everyone's progress on the 23 Things course, so your Things for this week are to get your own 23 Things blog up and running.

You will be expected to record your thoughts and experiences and add any ideas you may have on how to use the different Things for yourself or at work.

The posts can be as long or short as you choose or have time for, from a brief summary of what you did and learnt, to a longer consideration of the pros and cons of that particular tool. Then at the end, not only will we be able to see that you have completed all the things, but you will have your own record of your participation.

There are no wrong answers on your blog – these are your opinions, and as long as you’re not rude or defamatory (remember this is a work project, and your blog is public!), anything goes.

You can choose to use any screen name you like (you may prefer to keep yourself anonymous). This name will be posted on your blog, but your “real identity” will not be listed. All participants will be linked to the http://23things-cammedlib.blogspot.com/ blog so as you go along you'll be able to see how everyone else is doing, and comment on and support each other, but you will be as anonymous as you choose to be.

If you already have a blog and would like to use it to record your 23 Things experience rather than setting up a new one then please feel free to do so. However you will still need to register the URL with Isla and please make sure you tag each post consistently as described below.

Your blog is entirely yours to do what you like with other than this - if you get keen and explore further or other tools, feel free to write about those too; or general thoughts as and when they occur to you.

Thing 3 – Create a Blog

Task:

Create a blog

Go to http://www.blogger.com/ and sign in at the top right-hand corner with your Google account username and password.
This will bring you to a sign up for Blogger screen.
Some of the information may already be filled in for you, depending on what you told Google when you signed up for your account, but you will probably have to choose a display name, and you will need to accept the Blogger terms of service.
Screen two is called name your blog, and this is where you pick your blog's title and URL.
The blog title can be anything you like - on this blog it is 23Things@CamMedLib + FollowThat.....
The blog address has to be unique, so you might have to try a few things before you find one that works. You can change both of these later on if you decide you don't like them after all, but be wary of changing your blog address as all links and feeds will break if you do.
Screen three is where you pick the template, ie what your blog will look like. There are a number of standard templates to choose from - pick your favourite! Again you can change this at any time in the future, and if you're feeling adventurous you can customise the templates or upload entirely new ones.

BLOG:

Make your first post

Click on the orange arrow that says 'start blogging', or, if you have logged out and are coming back to your blog, then click on 'new post' by your blog's name on your dashboard (the screen you see when you log in).
This will bring you to the posting screen. Enter a title for the post, and then type your text into the box. There is a toolbar at the top of the box which will allow you to format your text and add links and images.
write an blog entry outlining your impressions of 23 Things so far, and perhaps what you already know about web 2.0. That way when you finish the programme you can look back at yourself at the start and see how much you've learnt.
When you have finished, add 'Thing 3' in the labels box at the bottom. Labels are tags, and you'll learn more about these later on, but for now these are just descriptive keywords for each entry. For each post you make on your 23 Things blog, please make sure to label it 'Thing [?]' for the number of the thing it relates to. This means your posts on each Thing can easily be found. You can add other tags too if you would like to.
When you are all done, click the big, orange publish post button at the bottom of the screen, and your first post is now live!

Your second post: Things 1 and 2 and inserting images

To make sure that your blog is a record of the whole programme, please write a second post about what you learnt last week and your thoughts on start pages.
As the programme goes on, it would be a great idea to add screenshots of the various sites to your blog posts, so try this out by inserting a screenshot of your iGoogle page as an image in this post.
If you don't know how to make screenshots, there's some instructions below, or look in the Hints & Tips
Make sure your browser is open and the RSS feeds are showing and maximised on your screen, then press [Ctrl] and [PrtSc or Print Screen] (on the same line as the F keys on your keyboard), and then press [Ctrl]+[c]Now open an image editing program (Paint will do) and paste the image in ([Ctrl]+[v]. Save the image to your computer (perhaps in My Documents/ My Pictures) and give it a name you'll recognise so that you can upload it to Blogger.
To add images, click on the image icon in the toolbar on the posting page (to the right of the 'link' button), which will bring up a box for you to upload your image.
Don't forget to tag the post 'Thing 1' and 'Thing 2' in the labels box before you publish it!

Extra task (optional

try adding different gadgets to your layout (perhaps a fish tank, or list of favourite links, or change the archive list)

Thing 4 – register and search

Task:

email Isla (ilk21@cam.ac.uk) with the address of the blog (www.???.blogspot.com). It will be added to the list of participating blogs on http://23things-cammedlib.blogspot.com/
Go to http://www.google.co.uk/ and open “more”. Pick blogs from the list of options. Search for a blog on a topic that interests you.

BLOG:

Write a blog entry including a link to the blog you found with a sentence or 2 saying why you chose it.
Label this blog post “thing4” and publish it.

Week 1: Personalised Homepage

2010-05-10T10:52:00.000+01:00

Thing 1 – iGoogle ID

iGoogle lets you create a webpage for yourself, so that wherever you’re working, on whatever computer, you’ll be able to login to your own space to get the links and tools you find useful.
Watch this movie to see how easy it is to customise it to contain the links, tools you want, and to look the way you prefer.

Task:

set up your Google ID at https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount (or use your existing Google ID if you have one)
go to https://www.google.com/ig and log in with your Google ID
set up 2 named tabs (click on the arrow on the home tab, and select “add tab”, and name it)
personalise your pages by using the “change the theme” option to change the colour/style of the top section of the page.

Extra task (optional)

investigate Netvibes (eg ScHARR or South Tees NHS Libraries) and Pageflakes (Phil Bradley or East Cheshire Health Libraries)
consider the difference between iGoogle and these other tools

Thing 2 – gadgets/ widgets

Just having an iGoogle page isn’t enough, you’ve got to populate it with tools and toys.

Task:

add 5 widgets to your iGoogle page (you can add a pubmed search box, fun things like horoscopes or interesting quotes, or a fish bowl)
click on 'Add stuff' and browse by categories (on the left-hand side), see what's popular by clicking on 'Most users', what's new by clicking on 'Newest' or use the search box.

Extra task (optional)

add the Newton widget

Well done! First 2 Things are complete!

About FollowThat....

2010-04-23T15:39:00.001+01:00

As well as using the 23 Things format to give an introduction to some new tools, we're eager to improve the team work of the library staff.

To do this, we think it would help to learn more about what we each do. But who's got time for work shadowing?

Instead, we thought that tracking processes would be more useful - how does a book get from the supplier to our shelves? What's involved in getting an inter-library loan from another library?
We've integrated "rest" weeks into the format, so there's an opportunity to catch up on the tasks set in 23Things, but also to learn from colleagues what their part in:

the processing of books,
the processing of journals,
inter-library loan requests from our readers, and from other libraries
reader registration and
responding to complex reader enquiries

Each of these tasks is carried out by a particular combination of staff, allowing great expertise to develop. But there is also the danger of silos being created, whereby we lose sight of the impact our contribution has on the next step in the process.

Each member of staff who carries out one step in any of the processes outlined above will give a brief overview to their colleagues, and then we'll move on to the next step as we follow that book to the shelf, follow that journal to the shelf, that article request to the reader and so on.

FollowThat... was born!

The 23 things, and what we're following

2010-04-14T18:07:00.000+01:00

Overview:

10th -17th May 2010 Week 1 - Personalised Homepage

Thing 1 – iGoogle ID
Thing 2 – gadgets/ widgets

17th – 21st May 2010 Week 2 - Blogging

Thing 3 – Blog
Thing 4 – register your blog and find other peoples’ blogs to read

24th – 28th May 2010 Week 3 - RSS

Thing 5 – Browser based RSS Reader
Thing 6 – Web based RSS reader
Thing 7 – NHS MyLibrary RSS reader

31st May – 4th June 2010 Week 4 – catch up & Follow that…. BOOK!

7th – 11th June 2010 Week 5 – Bookmarking

Thing 8 – Browser based bookmarks
Thing 9 - NHS MyLibrary
Thing 10 – Delicious

21st – 25th June 2010 Week 6 – Office 2.0

Thing 11 – google docs
Thing 12 - wiki

28th June – 2nd July 2010 Week 7 – Mobile technologies

Thing 13 – Wireless access to the internet
Thing 14 – Mobile access to the internet

5th – 9th July 2010 Week 8 – catch up & Follow that…. READER!

12th – 16th July 2010 Week 9 – Video & Podcasts

Thing 15 - YouTube & YouTube Channels
Thing 16 - Podcasts

19th – 23rd July 2010 Week 10 – Maps

Thing 17 – Google maps & streetview

26th – 30th July 2010 Week 11 – Google Scholar

Thing 18 - Google scholar

2nd – 6th August 2010 Week 12 – catch up & Follow that…. JOURNAL!

9th – 13th August 2010 Week 13 – e-books

Thing 19 – Cambridge e-books
Thing 20 – NHS e-books
Thing 21 – Google books & Guttenberg Project

16th – 20th August 2010 Week 14 – Institutional repositories

Thing 22 – dSpace

23rd – 27th August 2010 Week 15 – catch up &Follow that….. ENQUIRY!

30th August – 3rd September 2010 Week 16 – Reflection

Thing 23 – relax!

About 23Things@CamMedLib

2010-04-12T16:38:00.000+01:00

The aim of this programme is to introduce library staff to Web 2.0 technologies – working on the principle that exposure is the first stage in learning. Over the 13 weeks, the aim is for staff to spend a little time each week working on the project, building up their own skills as well as adding to their abilities at work. It is hoped that having an average of 2 Things to do per week will make this challenge realistic as well as wide-ranging within the time available.

http://23things-cammedlib.blogspot.com/ is based on the original 23 Things program which ran at the Public Library of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County in the USA in 2006, but offers thanks to Imperial College London Library, Oxford University Libraries, Liverpool John Moore University Library and University of Huddersfield.

You may find it useful to read the FAQs and the Hints and Tips pages on this blog.

We're also incorporating FollowThat... into the format of 23Things - more details are available.